Hi Everybody:
A programming note as we have entered August. After this week's post, the plan is to have two more before we go on hiatus till September. Now, this means we won't be publishing during both the DNC (August 17-20) and the RNC (August 24-27) With the pandemic showing little signs of ending anytime soon, I don't think there's going to be that much to report. If anything crazy (or should I say REALLY crazy) happens, I'll either put my $0.02 on Facebook and/or Twitter, or if need be, I'll post something. But for now, the plan is to publish up until August 16.
We are halfway through the most bizarre summer of all time. Hope everyone is hanging in there.
A TALE OF TWO FRANCHISES
I'm not someone who takes the idea of contracting sports franchises lightly. I am well aware that we are talking about hundreds if not thousands of jobs going away, and in many cases a blow to the psyche of an entire city. I think that any city who gets a sports franchise should have the opportunity to make it work.
But there are two franchises who I believe should either relocate or contract. I've mentioned them before, and this week they both happened to be in the news, for as usual, all the wrong reasons.
They are baseball's Miami Marlins and hockey's Arizona Coyotes.
The Marlins haven't played a game since last weekend because over half their roster has tested positive for COVID-19. It stands to reason, as Florida has become ground zero for the pandemic. But according to an MLB investigation, the Marlins behavior while in Atlanta to play the Braves in an exhibition game could have led to this outbreak. It certainly didn't help prevent it.
According to the Bleacher Report's Scott Miller:, the Marlins were very lapse in following protocols during Atlanta trip last weekend, players going out, players in hotel bar, etc. Lots of MLB people very unhappy with Miami
The last line is what we call an understatement. This 60 game season was a very delicately set up House of Cards that if if had any chance of working at all, needed all the players and staff from the teams to follow the guidelines. I'm sure the Marlins aren't the only team to flaunt the rules, but so far they are the ones who have suffered the consequences the most.
But that alone isn't why I feel like they need to either move or cease to exist.
They have been consistently mismanaged throughout their 28 year history. Yes, I know they are two times World Champs, but they had fire sales immediately following each of their titles, and are more often than not, scraping the bottom of the barrel in the standings. They have a fairly new taxpayer funded stadium, yet have been near the bottom in attendance since the stadium opened in 2012. Derek Jeter has been as clumsy as an owner as he was polished as a player (one of the myriad of reasons I don't want A-Rod anywhere near the Mets ownership group).
It's just been one thing after another with this franchise. I just get the feeling pro baseball isn't meant to be in Miami. What also brought this to mind was hearing that Jose Reyes officially retired this week. He signed with the Marlins after the 2011 season, and two years later found himself traded to the Blue Jays, because the Marlins couldn't afford the contract they had given him. That's pathetic.
As for the Coyotes, their GM John Chayka, suddenly resigned his position, 1 week before they were scheduled to start the playoffs. Now from what I've read, the majority of the blame for this fiasco lies with Chayka, who on the surface, just seems like another know-it-all who didn't see the need to fulfill his obligation to his contract.
In fact, the Coyotes seem to finally have an owner who has both the desire and the means to make a go of it in Arizona. But I remain skeptical.
First let's deal with the issue at hand: Chayka was the youngest GM ever hired to run a pro sports team in North America, taking over as Coyote GM in 2016 at the age of 26. With Coyote ownership in a constant state of flux, Chayka would use the little money he had in the budget to trade for draft picks.
But when new owner Alex Meruelo bought the team, he gave Chayka more money to play with, and he was able to build a solid playoff bound team.
But sometime this season, the Devils asked the Coyotes for permission to speak with Chayka which was subsequently denied. (Meruelo had already extended Chayka's contract) Chayka told Meruelo that it wasn't a job interview, but a chance to make connections with other owners to "gain market knowledge"
Which of course was total BS.
And it wasn't even that the Devils would have given Chayka a promotion in duties (as he also tried to claim) but it was the same position and responsibilities he had with Arizona.
Caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, Chayka's relationship with Meruelo deteriorated, and caused him to resign just prior to the playoffs starting. Again, it's tough to fault Meruelo here, but like with the Marlins, it's been one thing after another with these guys.
They moved to Phoenix from Winnipeg, with many predicting immediate success because after all, the year before, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver and lo and behold won the Stanley Cup the first year in their new city. (Which I don't know, maybe had something to do with trading for a Hall of Fame goaltender more than moving to the States?) Then they tried to sell the team to a group that had Wayne Gretzky in it (sound familiar?) That sale stalled more times than a broken down jalopy, and when it finally did go through, even the Great One couldn't get the franchise going.
They moved from America West Arena in downtown Phoenix, to a state of the art hockey arena in Glendale, AZ in 2003 a mere 17 years ago, and now Commissioner Gary Bettman says the team "needs a new arena because Glendale is not viable long term"
And that's been the biggest issue here. Bettman is determined to make hockey work in Arizona, even though it hasn't for almost 25 years. The arena is not the issue here, it's playing hockey in the desert. It's playing hockey in a city that doesn't care.
And look, I know hockey has taken off in cities you wouldn't have thought it would, like Nashville and Vegas. But this saga in Arizona is coming up on 24 years. Alex Meruelo is by all accounts and definitions of the word, a success. I'm all for giving him a shot to make a go of it, but I'm telling you the odds are not in his favor, through no fault of his own. This is Bettman's stubbornness gone mad.
Maybe Chayka's decision to bail doesn't mean anything in the long run, but to me it's just another misstep for a franchise and city that has had way too many of them.
MADONNA VS ANNIE LENNOX
I'm not really looking to dive into a subject that I admittedly am severely unqualified to talk about, so you can count me out of the "Is Hydroxychloroquine a cure for COVID-19" debate. What I can comment on is that one of the chief endorsers of the hydroxychloroquine cure, Dr. Stella Immanuel of Houston, TX, is a quackadoodle. She makes Dr. Conrad Murray (the dude who essentially killed Michael Jackson) look like a Nobel Prize for Medicine winner.
Amongst Dr. Immanuel's more dubious claims,
"Many women suffer from astral sex regularly. Astral sex is the ability to project one's spirit man into the victim's body and have intercourse with it," -that's according to CNN
and according to the Daily Beast....
that alien DNA was used in medical treatments and that scientists are plotting to develop a "vaccine" to make it impossible to become religious.
Well then.
And our fearless leader in Washington says that he's very impressed by Dr. Immanuel. Of course he is. But he's not who I'm interested in.
I want to discuss another fan of this crazy doctor. The Material Girl herself, Madonna, said that Dr. Immanuel was "Her Hero", and also put some of her out to lunch theories on her social media platforms. She managed to get herself censored on Instagram, but not before getting called out by the great Annie Lennox. According to the NY Post..
“This is utter madness!!! I can’t believe that you are endorsing this dangerous quackery. Hopefully your site has been hacked and you’re just about to explain it.”
Dangerous Quackery is as apt a description of all of this as I have heard. We've pretty much have had 4 years of it here. Madonna took the post down. I don't know if it was because of what Lennox wrote, or if she came to her senses or what. All I know is, Madge ain't helping any.
GOVERNOR CUOMO VS THE CHAINSMOKERS
So baby pull me closer in the backseat of your Rover
That I know you can't afford
Bite that tattoo on your shoulder
Pull the sheets right off the corner
Of the mattress that you stole
From your roommate back in Boulder
We ain't ever getting older
Closer-The Chainsmokers featuring Halsey
I'm not going to lie, I liked that song. It spent 12 weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016.
Problem was many of their fans took that song to heart in the Hamptons last week.
The charity concert in Southhampton was supposed to be a "drive in" concert. Instead videos and pictures showed that an estimated crowd of 2,000 or more stood much less than 6 feet apart with few if any wearing masks.
Governor Cuomo slammed the show and it's organizers calling it "grossly disrespectful to fellow New Yorkers...not only a gross violation of public health rules, but also a gross violation of common sense."
The Village of Southhampton is now under investigation by the state health department. Making it even more interesting, one of the performers was the town's supervisor Jay Schniednerman.
I actually feel bad for everyone involved here. I think the organizers were trying to do the right thing, but you can't have a show like that if you can't space the fans out. It's a shame, because the concert was for a couple of very worthwhile causes.
Back to sports for a minute, I'm thrilled that baseball is back, I'm thrilled that hockey is back and hell I'm even happy basketball is back.
I'm not thrilled that the Mets keep getting their a$$es kicked and that the Rangers lost their first playoff game.
I'm starting to get used to the cardboard cutout fans and the pumped in crowd noise. Most of the time, the crowd noise sounds like the first few seconds of Sgt. Pepper, but they're starting to get the hang of turning it up when something good happens.
But what happened with the Marlins this week, and how it affected the Phillies, Nationals and Yankees, that was pretty scary. And it just goes to show how fast this can spread. I really hope they can figure this out. If baseball were to have to shut down again because players are testing positive for COVID-19, that would really suck.
I’ll get into this bull$hit about Yoenis Cespedes next week. I’m not sure we’re getting the whole story there.
For now, stay safe
and Have a Great Week
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